The Caregiver’s Role as a Criminogenic Factor: Female Inmates within the Spanish Prison System

Abstract

Within the framework of research on women in prison, this work focuses, from a quantitative and qualitative approach, on exploring the role of caregiver assigned to women inmates and the eventual relationship between this and their involvement in crime.

Contrary to the classic theories of crime, which consider family ties as a criminal resistant factor —that is, as a factor that reduces the chances of getting involved in crime— recent research indicates that family ties associated with the role of caregiver assigned to women, may, in certain contexts, constitute factors that promote their involvement in criminality.

After surveying and interviewing 302 and 12 women, respectively, in 6 prisons in Andalusia, it is revealed that some decisions related to this care work attributed to women (such as the eventual abandonment of school studies, early marriage or early maternity), lead to placing her in a situation of vulnerability that favors her involvement in crime.

After exposing the theoretical framework, this article sets out the objectives and the methodology used in the «Women in prison» research, to then present the results obtained in relation to the role of caregiver of the inmate woman. The work concludes by exposing the main ideas that emerge from the analysis of results, as well as a series of recommendations that could benefit the female prison population.